subject: History of Arya Samaj [print this page] History of Arya Samaj History of Arya Samaj
Swami Dayananda Saraswati, a native of Gujarat, made his first attempt at reform in his native India. This attempt took the form of the establishment of "Vedic Schools" which put an emphasis on Vedic values, culture and religion to its students. The first was established at farry in farrukhabad 1869, with 50 students enrolled in its first year. The Vedic Schools represented the first practical application of Swami Dayanand's vision of religious and social reform. They enjoyed a mixed reception. On the one hand, students were not allowed to perform traditional idol worship at the school, and were instead expected to perform sandhya (a form of meditative prayer using mantras from the Vedas) and participate in agnihotra twice daily.
Swami Dayanand had trouble finding qualified teachers who agreed with his views on religious reform, and there existed a paucity of textbooks which he considered suitable for instruction in Vedic culture. Funding was sporadic, attendance fluctuated considerably, and tangible results in the way of noteworthy student achievement were not forthcoming.
As early as 1874, it had become clear to Swami Dayanand that, without a wide and solid base of support among the public, setting up schools with the goal of imparting a Vedic education would prove to be an impossible task. He therefore decided to invest the greater part of his resources in the formulation and propagation of his ideology of reform. Deprived of the full attention of Swami Dayanand, the Vedic School system collapsed and the last of the schools (Farrukhabad) was closed down in 1876 due to Muslim takeover.
Swami Dayanand made several changes in his approach to the work of reforming Hindu society after having visited Calcutta. The most significant of these changes was that he began lecturing in hindi. While this gained him a certain degree of respect among both the learned and the common people, it prevented him from spreading his message to the broader masses. The change to Hindi allowed him to attract increasingly larger following, and as a result his ideas of reform began to circulate among the lower classes of society as well.
From June to September 1874, Swami Dayanand dictated a comprehensive series of lectures to his scribe, Pundit Bhimsen Sharma, which dealt with his views and beliefs regarding a wide range of subjects including God, the Vedas, Dharma, the soul, science, philosophy, childrearing, education, government and the possible future of both india and the world. This voluminous work would prove to play a central role in the establishment and later growth of the organization which would come to be known as the Arya Samaj.
In 1875, the Arya Samaj established itself in Punjab, and some of its members began stating publicly that Sikhism is a degraded form of Hinduism using what was seen as derogatory language in reference to Sikh Gurus and their writings. The statements of the Arya Samaj activists were summarily denounced as acts of aggression with the intent of destroying Sikh religious identity. Moreover Swami Dayanand called Guru Nanak Dev a "dambi", meaning hypocrite. It was also alleged that the Arya Samaj, which had taken an increasingly active role in certain Sikh Gurdwaras, was introducing practices that were contrary to Sikh principles and behaving in ways which would prove detrimental to the Sikh faith.
